(WHAS11) - This Consumer Watch is a warning about some viruses that you can get from social networking sites.
Beverly Gnau, a long time WHAS11 News viewer recently had her computer locked up by a virus on a social networking site. She called into the station and spoke with Andy Treinen about her problem because she did not want to see this happen to anyone else.
Gnau says she started to social network with Facebook in October 2009. She spends most of her time on the computer writing books some of which that have been published under her pen name B.J. Givens.
Gnau heard rumors in the past that Facebook might start charging fees, so she tried to set up a MySpace page to diversify.
She says she could not even get her initial MySpace page set up.
She said, “Almost immediately after I logged off a box popped up on my screen telling me that I was infected with a virus/worm/trojan. It was asking for my personal information.”
Gnau was resistant in giving out her name, address, bank account, and credit card information. She decided to head to Best Buy where the Geek Squad was able to remove the virus.
The Geek Squad tech informed her that they had seen the virus before and recognized it as a common virus used for identity theft.
Beverly spent $200 to get the virus removed and also purchased a new security program that was recommended to her by a Best Buy associate. She was told the software, Kaspersky, keeps 97% of the junk off your computer.
Now, Beverly says she is no longer worried about her computer and back to writing.
For those who spend a lot of time on social networking sites, the Kaspersky program is highly recommended to protect your computer by experts. You can also protect your computer with free software, such as Microsoft Security.
